Null-sec mining operations

The other day, one of the guys in corp asked on TeamSpeak if anyone felt like going to null. Other than some people bringing stuff in through a High-sec deeper in the chain.

Me and one of the guys had been scanning the chain earlier, having checked out both Null-sec connections in it I knew of some mining going on in it. We couldn’t really do much about that earlier with two of us but I figured we had a better fleet now so might as well go check if we could grab something.

After a few bio breaks, bit of “Who’s bringing what” we had an Omen, Deimos, Jackdaw, Sabre and a Gila. Seeing as we were going out to null it was more of a: “bring whatever you want” kind of thing, instead of “bring a doctrine fit”.

After forming up on the hole to Null-sec our Sabre pilot went in, only to tell us there were a bunch of Procurers and a Rorqual on grid. Our Sabre pilot landed, went “aaawh” because of the fact that all the Procurers had warped off and asked if he should tackle the Rorqual. Seeing that due to the changes we didn’t think we could kill him, we decided to just go for it. Hit him a few times for shits and giggles and get on with it.

Imagine our surprise when his shield was going down faster than it’s supposed to be going down.
At this point I decided to ping on slack to see if anyone felt like bringing in some more DPS. Bringing in our resident mister AFK and one of the US guys. I heard later that someone was burning from deeper in the chain, but he was slow as fuck (This is what happens when you’re running sites in a C3 when others are out looking for pvp ;D)

On TeamSpeak we were guesstimating on whether or not this guy was trolling us. Due to our Sabre’s great bubbling skills and drone kiting we were able to get his shields down. And at about 75% armour he initiated self-destruct.

The funny thing is that despite that. We still thought he was trolling us. The system we were in had a Thanatos and a few Machariels in it. Not only that but about halfway through us pecking his shield a Crow came in to have a look at us. It is still unclear on why nobody came in to help him but, this guy was not trolling.

Thus the beginning of our roam, already ISK positive beyond the fleet composition and we had only just started, OP success.

We went a bit further into Cache but most ice miners had already heard about what had happened.
We did find a Rattlesnake but unfortunately he warped off as soon as the Sabre landed on grid with him.
Funny thing about that however, was the fact that a Viator landed a few seconds after the Rattler had warped off. Doing what he seems to be enjoying, bubbles went up and another ship got killed.

On to our direct connection into null.

In this we found another mining fleet a few jumps in. Hearing the Sabre pilot on comms go “jump jump jump jump!!!!” was fun to hear.
Almost as fun as hearing him get annoyed at losing when playing rocket league. (Almost, it’s seriously hilarious when that happens)

Not only did we kill a group of retrievers, we also killed one of the new Porpoise. Op success!
But luckily, null sec dwellers are either retarded or stubborn, since a few jumps later we found another group of ice miners. FCON sure likes their ice.

After killing these we got camped in, and here is where my screw up happened.

We gave them about half an hour, the Sabre had gotten out, he felt bad about leaving us but it was time for bed for this poor little baker. So he had my permission to go home. I’m a generous Lord.

We safe logged and gave it about half an hour to 45 minutes.

At that time one of the guys was flying around in an Interceptor, telling us they had docked up. He was wrong. Oh so wrong.

Logging back in we warped to the gate to be greeted by a Broadsword, Deimos and some other stuff that I couldn’t be bothered to check. Safe to say that we lost the two cruisers.

Our Magus was able to get out eventually. So there’s that.

Still, we killed about 6bill in ships, losing roughly 500m, I’d say we did well.

What did we learn the other day?

  • Not every Rorqual will be fit according to the new changes. It might be worth it to check them out
  • If we are killing someone, maybe talk to them sooner about a ransom. Before they initiate self-destruct
  • Miners are not very smart. 15 retriever drones would have killed us
  • Null-sec dwellers do not enjoy risk. Even with 4-5 people they wouldn’t come to us in a site.
  • FCON really likes Ice and hates fights.
  • Sabres are love, Sabres are life

Did not see that coming.

The other day, after browsing the market a bit, I decided to check up on my wormhole PI ventures. I had noticed that my launch pads were filling up slowly and it was time to go and empty them.

Good thing that the entrance to our WH was marked about 7 jumps from where I was. That meant I didn’t have to do too many jumps in my trusty little Nemesis. 

After getting in the wormhole and checking if nobody else was around I stored my Nemesis in the corps’ ship bay and took out one of our Epithals. When I cleared the second POCO I suddenly noticed an Abaddon on D-scan, I figured he’d be looking for me in the POCO’s so I jumped around a bit and cleared the last one.
Once that was done I quickly went back to the POS and took out my trusty Nemesis, warped to a safe, cloaked up and told my other corps members that there was an Abaddon in our hole. One of them was gas mining in a venture a few holes from ours and told me to search for him while he slowly made his way back.

As most of you know by now, I’m not that good at pinpointing, anyone, and I figured that the Abaddon knew I switched into a bomber so he must be jumping around himself, I didn’t want to take combat probes out so decided that it was time for me to try out the D-scan way of pinpointing someone.

Let’s just say that I failed miserably, in the half our of jumping around, readjusting the angle etc etc I did not find anything, yet he was still there. Once my fellow corporation member came in the hole in his Manticore, it didn’t take too long to find him. Turns out he was taking sleepers on in one of the sites. One of the places that I forgot about. Oh well, time for a strategy.

We were both pretty much newbies when it comes to bombing, but we figured we could try and kill him with bombs + torpedoes. Seeing that our hole doesn’t like armor tanks.

I slow boated my way to one side, the other one to the other and we waited at 30km for him to take somewhat of a beating. While waiting another one of our corp came online and we told him to come over, he wanted to try out something new so made a ship and was coming our way.
That tiny speck right there, is my target!
As he was two jumps from our hole, I suddenly see a Sabre on D-scan.. Warping exactly on the Abaddon, at first I thought it was a friendly of him, up until the point that he put up a bubble. A second after the bubble was up, three Proteus’ de-cloaked in it.
Well, that guy’s thinking: “Oh shit”

I was just staring there instead of acting, while my corps member had already de-cloaked and fired his bomb, a second after I did the same, we figured we might as well try and get in on the kill mail.
My bomb came in too late, and I have absolutely no idea how much damage I did to them but it was a pretty fun experience. 
“Where did they come from?!”

It was quite a thrill too, to suddenly see T3’s uncloak on our target. 

I went back there as they were slowly going out of the bubble and my corps mate did so too, we had decided to see if we could bomb the Sabre as they were still in the bubble, so about half a second after stating that, my corps member decloaks, fires a bomb and… Explodes.
I couldn’t help but laugh, turns out one of the sleeper turrets got him, his bomb didn’t even come close to hitting anything.
The guys that took the kill talked in local, asking us if those bombs were meant for them. Because if they were, they didn’t actually do much.. But all we really wanted was to get in on the kill mail, and maybe blow up that Sabre.

I didn’t get any kills yet this weekend, but at least I didn’t lose any wrecks either, and it was pretty fun.. I might go roam later this evening, I still want to explode things.

Stay tuned o7